


In a Hopeless Place

by Fanforthefics (StormDancer)



Series: Hockey Tumblr Oneshots [26]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-27 17:49:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16707130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/Fanforthefics
Summary: Prison is a stupid place to fall in love.





	In a Hopeless Place

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: meeting in prison AU. 
> 
> I know nothing about actual prison, except that I know this elides or occludes the actual mess and problems that is the American prison system. For this romanticization, I'm sorry. 
> 
> Don't know anyone, don't own anything, etc.

Tyler knows what people think of him. He’s a big guy, but not that biggest, and he’s “pretty,” and he’s “mouthy,” and it makes guys think things, in here. Tyler gets it.

But he’s pretty and he’s mouthy and he’s  _smart_ , or at least he knows how to play the game, so he deals and he wheedles and he plays the game and counts down the days and the hours and the minutes until he can fucking do something again. 

Then–he gets a new cellmate, and he sees big and he sees handsome and he sees intimidating and he sees dumb, and he thinks yeah, he can work with Jamie Benn. 

///

Benn’s quiet, and he holds himself like he’s trying to seem smaller. He smiles at Tyler’s jokes, and his snark, but he doesn’t really add much. Tyler can’t really tell if it’s because he’s just stupid, or if it’s because he’s angry, or if he’s just quiet. He keeps his head down, anyway, which Tyler’s never been able to manage. 

Until–they’re in the mess hall, eating dinner, and some guy says some shit about Klinger, who’s sitting nearby. Klinger’s a good kid, Tyler’s always thought, too good to be here, even if he’s not going to actually say anything about it. That’s not how it works in here. But he still winces when one of the guys shoves him out of the way. 

Klinger stumbles, nearly knocking into Benn, and Tyler’s ready to just keep going, but Benn stops. Sets him on his feet. Oh, he’s going to do so badly in here, Tyler thinks; gentle giant types always get stomped down fast.

Sure enough, “What you doing here, then?” the guy who shoved Klinger growls. He’s a big guy with a swastika tattoo; Tyler’s always steered clear of him. He heard about the number of people he put in the infirmary pretty early on. “You looking at something?” 

“He’s asserting dominance, you don’t have to–” Tyler starts, because his cellmate getting beaten on doesn’t do anything for his rep. But Benn just stands there, and somehow he looks bigger now, glaring down the neo-Nazi. He’s as tall as the neo-Nazi, Tyler notices. He hadn’t noticed that before. 

“Maybe I am,” Benn says, and he’s calm but there’s a fire in those doe eyes Tyler hadn’t seen before. “I’m looking at an asshole who likes to push kids around.” 

“What did you call me?” the neo-Nazi demands. “You think you can come in here with those cock-sucking lips and just say shit like that?”

“I think I’m just telling the truth,” Benn replies. “If you’ve got a problem with that–” 

The neo-Nazi’s fist lashes out, and hit Benn in the stomach.  

“Shit!” Tyler swears, and jumps out of the way, expecting to tug Benn–but then Benn’s fists are going too, and Tyler gets out of the way of both sides. 

It’s broken up quickly, of course, with guards with tasers, but when it’s done Benn has a black eye but the neo-Nazi’s bleeding from the lip and spitting fire. 

“He started it,” Tyler points out, to the guards who are yanking them apart. “Just saying. Benn was only defending himself.” 

Benn glances over at Tyler, like he heard that. Something’s changed in him, it looks like–or maybe Tyler’s seeing him different, seeing the spark in his eyes and the fierceness of his grin. Maybe he’s not so dumb after all. Maybe he’s something else entirely.

///

“No solitary?” Tyler asks, when they shove Benn back into the cell a little later. 

Benn shrugs. “First offense, I guess?” He settles onto his bunk, and he’s back to that pulled-in thing he was. Tyler eyes it. It’d be harder to work with that. 

Instead, he reaches under his cot, flips Benn the cigarettes he’d stashed there. “From Klinger,” Tyler explains, when Benn gives him a surprised look. “The kid you were defending. He says thanks.” 

“Oh.” Benn looks at the cigarettes in confusion. 

“He shouldn’t,” Tyler goes on. “Now he’s got a target on his back, and so do you. And so do I, just from being your cellmate.” 

Benn tilts his head, looks at Tyler. No one’s looked at him like that since he got here. “You don’t sound mad about it.” 

Tyler grins. “I think we can make it work. I know how things work in here. You can fight. It’s a match made in the federal sentencing proceedings.” 

Slowly, Benn starts to grin too. It’s softer than that fierce, post-fight look, almost sweet. It has no place here. “I probably do need someone to show me the ropes,” he admits, and Tyler nods and throws himself onto the bunk next to Benn. 

“You really do. That was a stupid-ass fight to get into.” 

Benn shrugs, opens the pack of cigarettes. “I don’t actually smoke,” he says, and offers it to Tyler. Tyler shakes his head. 

“Neither do I,” he says, and takes the pack anyway. “We’ll trade them.” 

“We?” Benn asks, and Tyler nods. 

“We.” 

///

It goes like this–people like Tyler. Even in somewhere like here, Tyler makes friends. Makes people who’d rather not victimize him, if they have a choice. It’s served him well so far. 

People like Tyler, but people  _listen_ to Jamie. He has a knack of it Tyler’s never mastered, something about the way he talks or the way he holds himself or the way he just is. And it serves Tyler well too–people listen to Jamie, and Jamie listens to Tyler. And it all works. 

///

“Why are you in here?” Tyler asks, one night when they’re both lying on their bunks. Tyler can’t see Jamie, lain out on the lower bunk, but he knows he’s there. There’s something about that knowing that’s settled something in Tyler he never knew he was missing before. 

“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about that,” Jamie replies. “You said that.” 

“Not with me,” Tyler dismisses that concern. “Come on, Benn. What are you in for?” 

“You tell me first,” Jamie bargains, and Tyler makes a face at the ceiling. Jamie does that. For all he listens to Tyler, lets Tyler call the plays, there’s a line in him that Tyler can’t push past. A wall that Tyler hits and can’t push through. He hasn’t had that before. 

“Fine. I fell in love with the wrong person,” he says easily, like he always does. Like he told a jury and a judge. 

There’s a pause. Then Jamie asks, “Really?” in a voice like he doesn’t believe it, and Tyler already knows how he’d be looking at him. With that expression like he sees more in Tyler. 

“No,” Tyler admits. “Did it all on my own.” He pauses. “Did you?” 

“No,” Jamie says. Quiet. Like it’s drawn out of him unwillingly. “But I’m the only one who’s in here, so it was worth it.” 

Tyler hums. He’s not sure there’s someone he has, who would say that about him. 

He wonders if Jamie would. 

///

Time goes on. That’s really all there is to say about prison. They work. They work out. They play basketball. They gather people around them, sometimes–drawn in by Tyler’s charm and the way Jamie has of making it seem like there’s good in here. But really, there’s nothing else to do in prison but talk, and Jamie doesn’t say much but he listens well, and Tyler likes to talk. Likes to get Jamie to talk too, because something in him feels proud when he does, and there’s not a lot to feel proud of in here. But sometimes Jamie smiles, and Tyler thinks–maybe there is. 

///

“What are you going to do when you get out?” Jamie asks, another night. Night’s the only time it’s just the two of them. There’s always people around, everywhere else, and Tyler loves people, and there’s never enough in here, but he likes this time with Jamie too. With just the two of them. 

He wishes he could see Jamie while they were talking like this. He wishes he could see Jamie a lot, more than he should. You can’t think about things like that here. Not about the guy who watches your back. Not about his shoulders or his smile or his lips or his eyes or his back or his dick. Not even when there’s so much to think about. 

But now, Jamie can’t see him and he can’t see Jamie, so Tyler lets himself imagine, for a second. Being in a normal place. Having normal pillow talk. 

“Segs?” Jamie says, and Tyler starts. Right. 

“See my dogs,” he says, like he always does. Jamie makes a noise that means he’s grinning. 

“What about after?” 

“My mom, probably.” 

“Tyler.” 

“I don’t know,” Tyler says. It’s not a lie. He doesn’t know. He does know that last time he was stupid, and that he won’t be stupid again, and that there’s not a lot of jobs out there for ex-cons. “I used to think I’d play hockey.” 

“Yeah.” That’s definitely a smile. “So did I. Or baseball.” 

“Canadians, right?” 

“Yeah.” Jamie agrees. “Or, not the Habs. Obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Tyler agrees. “But–maybe we’d have played together.” 

Jamie sighs. “Yeah,” he says, “That would have been cool.” 

“Cool, yeah.” Tyler closes his eyes, and maybe he dreams of that, but no one knows. Then, because it’s quiet. “We won’t, though,” he says, and for once in his life, he trusts the person he’s talking to to understand what he’s saying. 

“No,” Jamie’s voice is steady. “We won’t.” 

///

Prison is a stupid place to fall in love. 

Tyler’s smart in all the wrong ways. 

///

Tyler’s parole hearing comes up all at once, faster and slower than he expected. 

“So you’re getting out?” Jamie says, before he goes in, because he’s never believed anything less. 

“I guess–I can’t believe it.” Tyler shakes his head. The idea of getting out has been so far from imaginable that he hasn’t thought about it. The idea of getting out. The idea of Jamie. Two things so unimaginable that dreaming will only hurt. 

“Just don’t forget about me when you’re in the big wide world, yeah?” Jamie says, and holds out a hand. Tyler looks at it. Looks at Jamie. 

“Never,” Tyler promises. “Are you going to be okay in here, without me?” 

Jamie smiles like a smirk. It’s a good look on him, that sort of easy confidence; Tyler sort of misses his old innocent smile. “It’s been a long time since I needed you to tell me how to do this.” 

“Saying you don’t need me?” Tyler asks. More needy than he wants to be. 

Jamie shakes his head, and there’s that smile–softer, smaller. Too soft for this place. The smile that hits Tyler deep in the place he’s buried for his years here. “Saying I’ll miss you,” he says, and Tyler just has to smile, and shake his hand, and pull him into a hug. 

“See you on the other side, bro,” he says into Jamie’s ear, tying to remember the shape of him. Who knows what’ll happen to him before he gets out. 

“See you on the other side,” Jamie replies, holding him just as tightly, the lets him go. 

“Seguin?” the guard calls, and Jamie pats him on the shoulder, steps back. 

“Say hi to the dogs for me,” he says, and Tyler gives him a final fist bump before he’s walked out of the cell. He doesn’t look back. 

///

Everything and nothing is the same, being out. Tyler sees his dogs. Readjusts. Sees his mom. Sees his sisters. Goes to his parole hearings and nods and smiles and says the right things, because that’s how you play the game. Tries to get a job, but who’s hiring an ex-con? Tyler’s good at one thing, and one thing only, but–

He plays the game. And thinks about what it felt like, to have someone he couldn’t help but trust. 

///

The sun is bright outside the prison, as Tyler leans against the car and waits. He’s only posing a little. His body’s changed since prison, a little less muscle but also a little more bulk, and it’s the first time he’s here in a suit. 

The doors open. Close. It’s been two years, and Tyler still remembers the shape of him.

“What the hell?” Jamie says, stopping and staring. He’s in what he was arrested in, jeans and a t-shirt, and he’s clearly been working out since he got to prison because he’s nearly bursting out of the t-shirt. “Tyler? What are you doing here?” 

“Thought you might need a ride,” Tyler says, and smiles. Jamie smiles back, and it’s the same smile. 

“I do,” He agrees, and comes over to the car. Tyler gets in one side. Jamie gets in the other. 

“Tyler,” Jamie says, when they’re away. “What are you doing here?” 

“I thought you might miss me.” 

“Tyler,” Jamie says a third time, as they pull up to a stoplight. “Why are you here?” 

Tyler turns to him. Jamie’s looking at him like he always did, like he sees right through Tyler’s bullshit. 

“I’ve got something,” he says, and swallows. “I didn’t want to do it without you.” 

Jamie’s smile blossoms over his face, slow and warm and Tyler feels it everywhere. “Me neither,” he says, and his hand inches over, so that their pinkies brush, and Tyler feels that everywhere and more. They aren’t in prison anymore. Maybe it’s less stupid, here. “Tell me about it.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it? Comment or come chat on tumblr at [ fanforthefics!](http://fanforthefics.tumblr.com/)


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